“I don’t know what my own is. And it is better not to know. Then I shall not have to come into it.”
“You know Father wants you to be educated.”
“But then I should be different. And he seems to like me as I am.”
“So do we all. We don’t want our little one altered. We want her to grow into her full self.”
“I believe I am that already. But it is best for people not to know it. They think more of me.”
“Oh, I can’t think what to say to you. You must be a changeling. And you will have to live in the world, like everyone else.”
“No, not like everyone. Only like myself. That is all I shall try to do.”
“It may not be so easy. You won’t always be sixteen.”
“I feel as if I should. And I think in a way I shall.”
“I am sometimes afraid you will.”
“You set me a good example. You won’t always be twenty-five. You have already ceased to be it.”
“I forgot my age when Mother died. It was the only thing, if I was to remember yours. Oh, I know Aunt Penelope came to take her place. And has done so with Father, as far as it could be done. But it ended there, and other things devolved on me. Oh, I don’t mean I am not grateful to her. She takes Father off my mind. She does for him what I could not do. He does not see me as on his mental level. How can he, when I am not? We must be content to be ourselves. I did hope to be his right hand in other ways, and to be seen by him as such. But it was not to be. Aunt Penelope loomed too large. Not of set purpose; as the result of the difference between us. I am the first person to recognise it. Though Father’s recognising it so soon made me a thought rueful I admit.”
“It was Aunt Penelope who recognised it. He never thinks of the difference between her and me.”
“He does not, you fortunate elf. The difference is too great. So in a sense it might not be there. But I was a step on the way. I tried and failed. I aspired to be what I was not. And so I remained what I am.”
“Aunt Penelope says I should improve myself. All she sees in me is room for improvement.”
“She is not quite right there. And I confess I don’t mind her being a little wrong sometimes.”
“She and Father are not alike, are they?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Ada, lifting her hands. “If there is a more disparate brother and sister, I have yet to meet them. But she serves Father’s purpose. And so serves ours in a way. She may have saved us from a stepmother. So I am grateful to her, or feel I should be, which is much the same thing.”
“I think it is quite different.”
“So it is, you perceptive sprite. I was making a false claim. I can’t go the whole length with her, and that is the truth. I see her qualities; I see the scale she is built on; I recognise my second place. But I can’t whole-heartedly go the full way. It is a thing I can’t explain.”
“I think you have explained it.”
“So I have. And I have explained myself as well. And a poor figure I cut, in my own estimation anyhow. I hope it is disguised from other people. I think I have a right to that. For it is not my true level. I shall rise above it. I am determined, and that is half the battle. I will not lose hold of myself.”
“A strong resolve,” said a resonant voice, as Miss Merton entered the room, a tall, spare, elderly woman, with an experienced expression, resigned, grey eyes and an untypical but definite face. “But one we can keep, if we will. We have ourselves in our own hands.”
“So we have, Aunt Penelope. And it is a power I am resolved to use. It does not matter along what line. We need not pursue it.”
“We will not, as we are not invited to,” said her aunt, smiling. “Our dealings with ourselves are our own.”
“Is Father in his study? Is he happy by himself? I thought he seemed harassed at breakfast.”
“That was natural, as he was harassed. He is at the end of some work, and beset by the final troubles.”
“I wish I could be of some help. How impotent I feel!”
“You wish you were older and more erudite. It is natural that you are not.”
“I don’t wish she was either,” said Emmeline.
“No, I wish I had the nameless thing that you have, Aunt Penelope. I don’t think it depends on age and erudition. Those might come to me in the end; and one of them must come; but that will not. I am in no doubt about it. And neither are you.”
Miss Penelope smiled again on her brother’s girls, her expression suggesting that she accepted them as they were. Ada was tall and strong and upright, with an opaque, clear skin, thick, brown hair, slightly puzzled, blue eyes and features that were pleasant and plain. Her sister was short and plump and fair, with a pale, full face and uneven, childish features that somehow attained the point of charm. She suggested the confidence in her own appeal, that her family accepted and encouraged.
The house they lived in was book-lined and not without grace, and seemed like a home from an old university moved to the country, which in its essence and life it was.
“Well, is my pupil prepared for me? I have given her time.”
“I fear she is not,” said Ada. “And I fear the fault is mine. Other subjects arose, and I admit I myself was one of them.”
“Well, they may have had their claim. Certainly the last one had.”
“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” said Emmeline. “And I should never have much. So perhaps I am better without it.”
“Better than many of us, I believe,” said her aunt, smiling.
“You are right, Aunt Penelope,” said Ada. “It is large of you to see it. Ah, the old sayings are the best. Their wisdom never wears out. ‘A little learning’ and the rest. ‘He does much who does a little well’. They hold the truth.”
“Perhaps the surface of it. I think not always more. When someone does a little well, that is what he does. And very little it can be. Is there more truth in the theory of the great failure?”
“There may be. And perhaps a little truth in that of the small one. I must hope there is, as that is what I shall be. I feel it more when I talk to you, and glimpse the something beyond myself. But I remain an advocate of sayings. They give us wisdom in a nutshell. And that is what we need.”
“There can’t be room for much in one,” said Emmeline.
“I think there is not,” said her aunt. “Real knowledge must have depth and scope. I say nothing for the condensed or more likely the reduced form of it.”
“Well, it is better than nothing,” said Ada. “Though again I glimpse the gulf between us. Half a loaf may be better than no bread.”
“Half is a good deal,” said Emmeline. “And is it much good for a thing to be great, when it is failure?”
‘Well, what is the talk?” said a deep voice, as Penelope’s brother entered the room, a tall, handsome, grey-haired man, whose features suggested his sister’s controlled to a better form. “Let me know the matter in hand.”
“The great failure, Father,” said Ada. “Aunt Penelope pleads ably for it. I was content to take a humbler stand.”
“If by great, you mean on a considerable scale, I would hardly plead for it. I am involved in one.”
“Oh, no, you are not, Father. It is the exhaustion after a prolonged effort. You need not fear. I do not for you.”
“I share people’s fears for themselves,” said Penelope. “They have the true basis.”
“But we need not encourage them. We can render a better service. I do feel my line is right there.”
“Mr. and Miss Egerton,” said a servant at the door.
“Now you have come at an opportune moment,” said Ada. “You find my father out of heart, and can say a word to cheer him. You can be no strangers to the reaction after endeavour. You have a twofold knowledge of it, as your two lives are one.”